STUDIO-ONLINE

(L) Incense Stand, 17th century
Cloisonné
33 1/4 x 26 1/2 x 19 in.

(R) Gord Peteran, Inception Stand, 2006
Electrical wire
31 x 24 x 24 in.

Inspired by China: Contemporary Furnituremakers Explore Chinese Traditions brings together 27 masterpieces of historic Chinese furniture with 27 pieces of contemporary studio furniture created specifically for the exhibition. The 22 contemporary artists represented come from the U.S., Canada, Japan and China. Shown together, the works reveal a surprising exchange of ideas and inspiration across time and geographic boundaries. The exhibit also marks the increasing opportunities for cross-cultural exchange among contemporary artists in North America and China, as China makes its entry into the global art community.

Museum of Arts and Design
40 W. 53rd St.
New York, NY
Telephone: (212) 956-3535
Web site: www.madmuseum.org

This exhibit looks at how the conditions particular to Minnesota and other areas in northern latitudes with extreme climates contribute to SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and the ways in which artists have depicted the the people of this area and their subjective responses to the climate in this part of the country. The artists’ works include photography, installation, video, sculpture and painting and focus on space as it relates to and is affected by light and atmosphere. As they explore subjective experiences of sadness and isolation, the artists suggest connections between physical and psychic space.

Frederick R. Weisman Art Musem
333 East River Road
Minneapolis, MN
Telephone: (612) 625-9494
Web site: http://www.weisman.umn.edu

Theo Jansen, Animaris Percipiere Primus, 2005. Photo: Kevin Kennefick

The surprising works displayed in this exhibit include meticulously crafted animals that move on their own, healing machines that exude beneficial energy, love-filled performances and statues that honor past and present deities. With their deeply-held personal truths, the “believers,” the artists who dare to believe in order to create, courageously defy skepticism, irony and, often, reason.

In their works, the artists contemplate some of the most fundamental questions that have long captivated philosophers, scientists and spiritualists, from the nature of matter, the possibility of immortality and the elements of identity, to the dynamics of human interaction, the limits of physical capacity and the power of the human mind.

Among the Believers are Bas Jan Aders, the Icelandic Love Corporation (ILC), Yoshua Okón and Fritz Haeg, CarianaCarianne, Sister Mary Corita, Erkki Kurenniemi, Jonathan Meese and former hobo Emery Blagdon, who created the healing machines.

Selections from The Believers will be on view through December 2007.

MASS MoCA
87 Marshall Street
Building 4, Second floor
North Adams, MA
Telephone: (413) 662-2111
Web site: http://www.massmoca.org

Tigers, 19th century, Korean
Ink and color on paper
17 x 19 1/4 inches (43.2 x 48.9 cm)
Gift of Dr. Andrew Byoung Soo Kim and Mrs. Wan Kyun Rha Kim in honor of James and Agnes Kim, 2006, 2006-30-2

With support from the Korean Heritage Group, established in 1997, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has doubled the size of its collection of Korean art, which now includes nearly 300 works. To mark the expansion of the Korean art program and the 10th anniversary of the Korean Heritage Weekend, the museum has displayed 50 examples from the collection acquired mainly since 1997, including screen paintings, hanging scrolls, furniture and ceramics.

Highlights include a group of Koryŏ dynasty (918–1392) and Chŏson dynasty (1392–1910) ceramics from the collection of Colonel Stephen McCormick. Col. McCormick donated nearly 100 Korean works of art to the museum through gifts and bequest. A selection of the Koryŏ celadons donated by Dr. Brian Salzberg is also displayed.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street
Philadelphia, PA
Telephone: (215) 763-8100
Web site: www.philamuseum.org/

Frederick Carl Frieseke, Lady in a Garden, oil on canvas, 1915. Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1999:52.

The San Diego Museum of Art is the North American host for this exhibit, which features more than 100 Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, Theodore Robinson, John Leslie Breck, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Pierre Bonnard and many other artists who lived and worked in Giverny and contributed to the development of Impressionism.

All of the works selected for the show were produced in or near the village of Giverny, in France, which drew many artists during a thirty-year period as the 19th century gave way to the 20th and new artistic currents sparked a revolution in the arts. Giverny was well suited for plein-air painting, and it did not take long for the Impressionists who traveled there to realize the potential of such subjects as Giverny’s lily ponds and scenes from its intimate domestic village life.

Impressionist Giverny is divided into four sections that follow the chronological, stylistic and thematic developments of the movement through works that were made at this time in the village, as well as the artists’ relationships with Monet and his large family. The exhibit includes documents and photographs along with the paintings to create a vivid portrait of this pivotal time in art history.

San Diego Museum of Art
1450 El Prado , Balboa Park
San Diego, California
Telephone: (619) 232-7931
Web site: www.sdmart.org

Clothing, accessories and textiles from the collection of the Charleston Museum are on view in a year-long exhibit, Clothes to Dye For, which examines color symbolism and color theory. The show unravels the history of dyeing and illuminates the role of Eliza Lucas Pinckney and the importance of indigo to the Lowcountry; the Spanish introduction to Europe of tiny South American cochineal insects full of red dye; and dangerous concoctions such as Scheeles’s green, a lightfast dye that is extremely poisonous to dyer and wearer.

Sections of the exhibit are devoted to specific colors and have sparked a series of special color-related events. For more information, visit: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Charleston Museum
360 Meeting St.
Charleston, SC
Telephone: (843) 722-2996
Web site: www.charlestonmuseum.org

Julius Caesar Brutus…Paul Rogers, Marc Antony…John Neville - Punch Theatre, Edinburgh Festival

The Chris Beetles gallery in London presents an exhibit of 50 pictures by illustrator/cartoonist Ronald Searle at Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire in collaboration with the National Trust.

Searle is best known for his illustrations from Lilliput and Molesworth and his St Trinian’s girls’ school horrors. This show displays original works made by the artist during his early period as well as Punch cartoons drawn from the 1950s through the 1970s; political reportage; film, literature and theatrical portraiture, and cartoons from Le Monde and the New Yorker. Previously, the Chris Beetles gallery has collaborated with the National Trust for exhibits of work by illustrators Quentin Blake and William Heath Robinson and for a show of pictures from the Golden Age of children’s book illustration.

Tuesday–Sunday, 12 p.m. to 5: 30 p.m.

Nunnington Hall
North Yorkshire
Web site: www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Chris Beetles Ltd.
8 & 10 Ryder St.
St. James’s, London
Telephone: (44) 020 7839 7551
Web site: www.chrisbeetles.com

Gifford Beal (1879-1956), On the Hudson at Newburgh, 1918, Oil on canvas, 36 x 58 ½ in., The Phillips Collection, acquired 1924

Among the earliest acquisitions of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, were major examples of American Impressionism. This show features many of these works by members of the first generation of American painters who were influenced by the technique, palette and subject matter of the French Impressionists. Featured in the show are Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, Robert Spencer, Augustus Vincent Tack, John Henry Twachtman, Julian Alden Weir and others whose works were acquired for the collection in its early days. The exhibit demonstrates how American painting at the turn of the 20th century changed and responded to the Impressionist aesthetic.

Named for collector Duncan Phillips, the Phillips Collection opened in 1921 and is America’s first museum of modern art. Phillips was a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company. The collection is housed in Phillips’s 1897 Georgian Revival home and building additions in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, DC.

The Phillips Collection
1600 21st St., NW
Washington, DC
Telephone: (202) 387-2152
Web site: www.phillipscollection.org

J.M.W. Turner’s Ingleborough from Chapel-Le-Dale (ca. 1810-15) will be on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art. (Photo © Yale Center for British Art)

Part of a year-long celebration of the centenary birth of the late Paul Mellon, a major benefactor of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, this exhibit features 45 artists and 88 major watercolors from Mellon’s collection. Visitors will see works by such British masters as William Blake, Thomas Gainsborough, J.M. Turner and John Constable. On loan from the Yale Center for British Art, the works were created during a 100-year period, from when watercolor painting became an important medium in the mid-18th century to the late 19th century, when it reached the height of its popularity.

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
200 N. Boulevard
Richmond, VA
Telephone: (804) 340-1400
Web site: www.wmfa.state.va.us

The Peter Pan copyright Jan von Holleben

For photographer Jan von Holleben’s first solo exhibition in London, he shows Dreams of Childhood, a series of works inspired by classic children’s literature and modern superheroes. In his photographs, the artist offers children and adults a chance to make their dreams come true through fantasy and imagination.

Now a resident of London, Holleben made Dreams of Flying over the last four years with children from his neighborhood in South West Germany. He moved from Germany to attend SAID University in South England, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors. In 2003, he founded photodebut, a non-profit photography organization to promote emerging photographers. He is a recipient of an Observer Hodge Photographic Award (U.K.), a Lucie Award (New York) and an Audi-Next Level Photographic Award.

Museum of Childhood/Victoria & Albert Museum
Cambridge Heath Road
London, England
Telephone: (44) 020 89835200
Web site: www.vam.ac.uk/moc